The traveling art exhibit “Body/Culture: Chicano Figuration”...

The traveling art exhibit “Body/Culture: Chicano Figuration” reflects how Chicano artists portray the human body in relation to their culture. The show opens Thursday at the University Art Gallery at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Kathy Zimmerer, the gallery’s director, said the exhibit will feature 45 works by well-known and emerging artists from different regions of California.

“The images in this exhibit will appeal not only to viewers who are familiar with the primarily political Chicano art of the 1960s, but also to those who are interested in seeing how Chicano art has entered the mainstream,” Zimmerer said.

The works range from Carmen Lomas Garza’s vignettes of life from her childhood in South Texas to the magic realism of John Valadez’s pastels. Other artists represented in the exhibit include Juana Alicia, Judy Baca, Enrique Chagoya, Eva Garcia, Lorraine Garcia-Nakata, Rupert Garcia, Frank Lopez-Motnyk, Jose Montoya, Armando Rascon and “Magu,” also known as Gilbert Lujan.

Each of the participating artists expresses Chicano culture through the depiction of human figures.

“The depiction of the human figure continues to be one of the most accessible forms of self-expression,” Garcia-Nakata said. “In my work, the figure is one of many vehicles for expressing points of reference I respond to.”

Baca, a muralist, emphasizes the multicultural aspects of the community in her work. Last summer, the artist organized the painting of a mural called “The Great Wall” in Los Angeles with help from local high school students.

The Cal State Dominguez Hills exhibit, organized by the University Art Gallery at Sonoma State University, is co-sponsored by the city of Carson Fine Arts and Historical Commission.

The exhibition opens Thursday and continues through Feb. 27 at the University Art Gallery, 1000 E. Victoria in Carson near the junction of the Harbor, Artesia and San Diego freeways. Visitor parking permits may be purchased for $1.50 at the yellow dispensing machines at the front of each campus lot. Admission to the exhibit is free.

An opening reception for the exhibit is scheduled Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the gallery.